


Swing In A Minor Key (It's Just)

by redbrunja



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrunja/pseuds/redbrunja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Providing emergency transport for wayward college interns wasn't in his job description.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swing In A Minor Key (It's Just)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seren_ccd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seren_ccd/gifts).



Doctor Jane Foster had very straightforward motivations. She wanted to prove her theories, she wanted the space and funding to study, and she wanted to bring Thor back to earth.  
  
Coulson liked the simplicity of those motivations. He also liked the  _location_  of those motivations. While SHIELD built up a base around the original crash site, Foster's groundbreaking theories were being tested a seven minute drive away. Seven minutes by car was close enough that it was easy to transport supplementary documents and requested equipment from one lab to the other but far enough away that Foster's intern couldn't wander into areas clearly marked 'authorized personnel only' and then snark her way into learning details of illicit government missions from individuals who should know better,  _Agent Barton,_  I could care less about your mutual romance with dive bars possessing jukebokes of questionable musical taste.  
  
There was nothing simple or straightforward about Darcy Lewis.  
  
Ms. Lewis wanted her iPod back.  _With her playlists intact, heartless government bureaucrat._  Ms. Lewis wanted SHIELD to stop bogarting data. Ms. Lewis wanted her alta mater to stop freaking out about the tiny, little indeterminate sabbatical she was on. Ms. Lewis wanted to help Dr. Foster rewrite the laws of physics.  
  
Coulson knew all of this, because someone had to liaise between Foster and SHIELD and after the third (and  _last,_  if he had anything to say about it) time that Darcy came to SHIELD's new base to drop off a zip drive and left with information AIM would pull out her back teeth with pliers to get and a play date with Barton, Coulson refused to allow Ms. D. Lewis on any piece of SHIELD property he had the authority to bar her from (which was all SHIELD locations in New Mexico, California, New York, and Terra Del Fuego - long story). If a personal touch was required with regards to Dr. J. Foster, Coulson fully intended to handle it himself.  
  
Which meant that he was in a position to observe Darcy Lewis in the flesh, as expressive and dramatic as a comedia del arta play. (He tried to tell himself that was a negative, instead of an unanticipated benefit.)  
  
Which meant that Darcy had his direct cell number.  
  
Which meant that at 15:08 hours on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday, she called him needing a ride.  
  
"Excuse me?" Coulson said.  
  
"Jane's truck broke down and Selvig isn't answering his phone and I have Jane's phone and the truck broke down in the middle of nowhere, of course," Darcy said all in one breath. "Can you come and get me?"  
  
Coulson almost said yes automatically. Not because he prided himself on being a decent person and he wasn't about to leave a twenty-two-year-old stranded by the side of the road in the mid-afternoon heat without a pressing reason. But because he wanted to.  
  
"Can you describe what happened, please?" he asked. He tapped the nearest agent on the shoulder, took the vacated seat, opened an email to the maintenance department and started typing.  
  
Providing emergency transport for wayward college interns wasn't in his job description. (Granted, his job description was purposely vague to the point of incomprehensibility.) He had a number of dense précis to review and a managerial overview meeting to prepare for. Coulson could think of a half-dozen people in the immediate vicinity he could send to ferry Ms. Lewis wherever she could wish to go (people with job descriptions that contained the phrase "render any assistance requested or required by senior SHIELD staff"). Admittedly, giving Darcy access to SHIELD employees could bode ill for Coulson's stress levels. But that didn't explain why fetching her from her broken vehicle and then delivering her to Foster's lab would be an  _appealing_  course of action.  
  
"The engine was making this kind of whirring, scrapping noise–" she demonstrated, "–and then it started rattling. I pulled over to the side of the road and it died completely."  
  
"How long was the engine making a whirring, scrapping sound before it began rattling?" he asked, adding Darcy's description of events to the email.  
  
"About..." Darcy pondered. "Six months."  
  
"The Pinzgauer's engine has been making a whirring, scraping sound for six months?" Coulson repeated, keeping his voice clear of absolutely any inflection.  
  
There was a pause. "Look, can you give me a ride or should I start hitch-hiking?"  
  
Coulson's mind thoughtfully provided him with the statistics on murders and missing persons cases related to America's highway system.  
  
"Ms. Lewis, please refrain from accepting rides from unknown individuals," he said crisply.  
  
"I've got my taser, it'll be fine," she argued.  
  
"Ms. Lewis, stay with your vehicle," Coulson put as much command in his voice as he was capable of. "I'll be there within fifteen minutes. Please do not accept any rides, offers of assistance, or turn your back on any individuals who might come upon you in the meantime."  
  
"Basically, don't get my ass serial-killed?" she said dryly. "I'll do my best. The ATV broke down–"  
  
"I know exactly where you are, Ms. Lewis," he interrupted. "We have trackers on all of Dr. Foster's equipment."  
  
"Son of a bitch," Darcy breathed, sounding annoyed and impressed at once. "That is–"  
  
Coulson took an immature amount of pleasure in hanging up on her before she could finish that sentence and then spent half of the drive to Foster's broken ATV berating himself for acting like a petulant teenager.  
  
~~~  
  
  
When Coulson drove up, Darcy was leaning up against the rear of the ATV, an olive tote bag at her feet, sunglasses on, iPod earbuds in, and her hair pulled into a sloppy bun. As soon as he pulled to the side of the road, she tossed her iPod and earbuds into her bag and trotted to the passenger door.  
  
She practically threw herself inside, sighing.  
  
"Oh, A/C, how I have missed you," she breathed, fumbled with the vents.  
  
Coulson could see the shine of sweat at her temples, neck, and chest, and more worryingly, the heavy flush along her cheekbones.  
  
He handed her a chilled liter of water.  
  
Darcy ran the bottle along the side of her face, then guzzled half of it.  
  
"Thank you," she said as Coulson pulled back out onto the highway. "You  _totally_ rock."  
  
She twisted in her seat, looked back at the ATV.  
  
"So... no desire to poke around an engine in ridiculously hot weather?" she queried and took another long swallow.  
  
"Maintanance staff will be along shortly to diagnose the problem and transport Foster's vehicle to a garage, if necessary," he answered.  
  
Coulson’s talents with vehicles consisted of advanced evasion and pursuit, basic automotive maintance, basic automotive sabotage, and finally, the ability to idly comment about anything unusual his car was doing in Barton’s hearing during an entirely unrelated conversation. Which is to say, no, he had zero desire to poke around in an engine he already knew he wouldn't be able to fix in 101 degree weather.  
  
"Yeah, I wouldn't want to either," Darcy said.  
  
There was a beat of silence and then she turned the stereo on, the CD Coulson had been listening to automatically playing.  
  
Darcy made a thoughtful noise and then skipped through the entire CD, listening to the first five seconds of each song before hitting 'next.' Then she returned to track one and just let it play while she opened up the center console and inspected the six burned CDs inside, the track listings neatly lettered in black ballpoint and inserted into the front cover of the jewel cases.  
  
“You’ve got some good stuff,” Darcy said. “Very genre specific, but solid. Angelo Debarre's great for economics homework."  
  
Coulson did  _not_  want to pursue  _why_ , precisely, that comment made a coil of tension at the base of his neck unspool, but it did.  
  
"Hmm," he said. In his peripheral vision, he saw Darcy frown for an instant before her face smoothed out and she turned to look out the passenger window.  
  
She didn't say anything else until they pulled up in front of the Smith Building and she pulled her bag from the floor into her lap, unfastening her seatbelt.  
  
“Thanks for the ride,” Darcy said.  
  
"It's always a pleasure, Ms. Lewis," he replied, which was more honest than he intended.  
  
Darcy's eyes narrowed at him, like she suspected him of mocking her, and she bumped her glasses a little further up her nose.  
  
"Well, I really appreciate it," she said, tone dripping with distrust and then she leaned in to kiss him.  
  
She couldn't have telegraphed the move more if she'd had a pair of semaphore flags. It would have been easy to move away, to offer a comment that would divert this situation onto a new track.  
  
He didn't move a millimeter; just let her press a close-lipped kiss to the exact corner of his mouth.  
  
She pulled back a little, checked his reaction.  
  
Coulson kept his face as bland as bland gets.  
  
Darcy looked impossibly frustrated and then she wrapped one hand around his tie and kissed him – really kissed him, kissed him with premeditation and intent. She nipped his bottom lip and when he opened his mouth, she responded with a series of quick, bruising, open-mouthed kisses, her tongue a quick flash against his. She tasted like salt and chapstick and when she started to pull away, he cupped the back of her neck and didn't let her, slanting his mouth firmly against hers.  
  
She mumbled something, relaxed against him, and he would be perfectly happy to do this for  _hours_.  
  
The current track on the CD ended and in the beat of silence before the next song started Darcy stiffened in his arms and jerked back. His tie was still wrapped around her hand, wrenching his head forward.  
  
Darcy stared at him, eyes wide, her kiss-swollen mouth open in shock.  
  
Coulson schooled all the expression from his face in a futile attempt to salvage some pride; it would have been more effective if, first, he'd taken his hand off her neck and stopped stroking the line of her jaw with his thumb.  
  
"Yeah," Darcy drawled the world, visibly concentrating on unwinding his tie from around her fingers. "That was... I'm going to get out of the car now."  
  
"Of course," he replied, and finally stopped touching her. He put his hands on the steering wheel at exactly ten and two, stared out through the windshield. With the current angle of the sun, the windows of the Smith Building were completely opaque, and provided an impressively accurate reflection of the expanse of New Mexico sky and desert.  
  
"I'd suggest a more proactive approach to automotive maintenance in the future," he added.  
  
Darcy gave an incredulous little laugh and then stared at him, like she expected him to say something else.  
  
He didn't.  
  
She slammed the car door very hard when she exited.


End file.
